MUSKEGON, MI – Judges, law enforcement and youth workers on Thursday expressed their great hopes for the new Juvenile Transition Center constructed by Muskegon County.

The county held a ribbon-cutting and tour of the 32-bed facility Oct. 16 on the county's Pine Street campus in downtown Muskegon.

The $6 million facility will be used to house and treat juvenile offenders, and was constructed in tandem with the nearby adult jail, still unfinished.

Muskegon County Board of Commissioner Chairman Ken Mahoney contrasted the new facility with the old one off the highway north of Muskegon. The old building was originally a house run by a husband-wife team. It was last added onto in 1972 to be more secure, with "big steel doors," Mahoney said.

"Just depressing," he added.

The new facility contains four classrooms, two exercise areas, a computer lab and medical/dental wing.

The center's Youth Services Director, Vernon Oard, said the new building would represent "hope for the future, not a place of punishment."

"Young people who only sit and serve their time become hopeless and may act out," Oard said. With more options for group and family treatment, "hopelessness will be replaced with hope that things will get better."

"It won't be about what's wrong, but hopefully it'll be about what we are going to do to make things right," Oard said.

Muskegon County Sheriff Dean Roesler said the new facility "made a lot of sense."

"I remember as a young patrol officer of the city of Muskegon, on many, many occasions, making that 14-mile trip up (U.S.) 31 to the old house," he said. "And often wondering, 'What sense did it make to run these young men and women up there, only to have to turn around the next day or two and try to get them back down here?'"

Mary Payne, who served on the citizen's review committee that oversaw the jail planning, took a tour of the building.

"It looks as though it should serve the purpose very well," she said, adding that it would only be possible to know for sure once the building begins to be used.

Furniture and equipment are set to move into the building on Monday, Oct. 20, said Granger Construction Project Engineer Todd Butler. The juvenile residents will move there Tuesday.

Judge Gregory Pittman, who presides over the family division of the court in Muskegon, praised those who had a hand in building the facility for having "the will and intent to do something good in this community."

But he added that, for those who deal with the troubled youths in the building, the work isn't finished.

"This is a wonderfully built building ... but it is only a building, ladies and gentlemen," Pittman said. "It only becomes what we really want it to become, when we put the effort and care and concern into that building."